


Found

by TurboToast



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Food, Hospitalization, Imprisonment, Injury Recovery, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mind Manipulation, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 16:02:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16222505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurboToast/pseuds/TurboToast
Summary: Talon is destroyed, and Widowmaker was captured by Overwatch. Trapped in a clinically white cell, the thoughts in her head are making less and less sense.





	Found

"I found the sniper!" A coarse, loud voice penetrated the ringing in my ears.  
  
I couldn't move and my breathing was labored. The last thing I remembered was the hallway I ran through collapsing.  
  
Someone lifted a piece of rubble off my chest. I gasped for air and coughed up blood. The pain came in bursts. I couldn't scream.  
  
Suddenly, I was lifted up, and after a stinging sensation in my arm the pain was muffled, numbed. My vision cleared up. I stared up into the grim, battle-scarred face of Reinhardt Wilhelm. Overwatch.  
  
KILL. STRANGLE. FIGHT. KILL.  
  
_ No. Not now. Maybe later, when I have a chance.  
  
_ "Oi, carry her properly, will ya? She's not a sack of bricks!" Another voice. The annoyance.  
  
I passed out.   
  


* * *

I woke up in a sterile white room. The light was so bright it stung my eyes, so I tried lifting up a hand to shield my face, but a soft, yet firm bind stopped me.  
  
ESCAPE.  
  
I tested my other limbs, found myself unable to move. My left leg was in a cast, someone had stuck me into a pair of plain shorts and a sports bra. Just out of arm's reach, a screen to the right informed me that my heart rate was rising. To the left, a large window with the blinds half closed would be an option, if I wasn't restrained and it wasn't made of thick armored glass. Next to it, there was a sliding metal door with a code pad. On the far end of the room, there was a desk with another screen mounted to the wall above it. The cabinets and cupboards that lined the wall on the left all had fingerprint readers.  
  
ESCAPE.  
  
That would be a problem. I couldn't move my hands far enough to try and slip out of the binds, and even if I managed that, the door was likely locked and my leg was broken. Escaping didn't really look like a feasible plan right now.  
  
By the time the lights went out, I counted 27 cabinets and 40 slats in the blinds. I tried moving again, and when I kicked with my right leg, the lights came back on, not as bright this time. Motion detectors.  
  
I closed my eyes and relaxed as much as the admittedly not terrible bed would allow me, and drifted off into sleep.

* * *

I lay awake for hours before the lights slowly dimmed up to full brightness again. Soon after, the door slid open with a chime, and a doctor with blonde hair in a ponytail walked in. Doctor Angela Ziegler. How many times had bullets destined for her head been blocked by a shield?  
  
"Good morning!" she greeted, "how are you? Did you sleep well?"  
  
I glared at her.  
  
KILL.  
  
_How?  
  
_ KILL.  
  
She sighed, as if she could hear my frustration. "You can keep quiet all you want, but in my professional opinion, me treating you would be a lot more comfortable if you talked."  
  
The screen on the wall came alive, displayed some graphs and numbers. Doctor Ziegler gave a thoughtful hum as she studied them and took a sip from a mug she brought. It smelled like coffee.  
  
Eventually, she walked over to me, hands buried in the pockets of her white lab coat. She met my gaze, but there was no contempt in her eyes.  
  
"There are a shower and a toilet behind you. You also need to be fed." Her brows drew together. "I can make this very unpleasant for you — both of us, really — or we can try letting you walk around in here so you can have some dignity. That would require you not trying to kill anyone, though."  
  
That was surprising. I'd expected to be tied up until they were done with me or I'd escaped.  
  
"Why do you care?" I asked, my voice a little less firm than I would've liked.  
  
Doctor Ziegler crossed her arms. "Because I swore an oath to care for my patients, no matter who they are, and because Lena thinks you're not all gone."  
  
Lena? Tracer. The annoyance.  
  
"So what's it going to be?"  
  
The choice was easy.  


* * *

If I'd counted correctly, the cast on my leg came off after three weeks. Doctor Ziegler had tested if her nanobots worked on me, but hadn't wanted to risk giving me a full dose. The food was decent. Overwatch didn't trust me with anything but a plastic spoon though, so it was mostly soups and stews. There was nothing I could take apart in this room either. Every now and then, Tracer walked past the window, sometimes stayed for a minute.  
  
ESCAPE.  
  
I still couldn't walk properly, and trying to torture the door code out of the doctor probably would've gotten me killed. No escaping. At least I hadn't just been dumped in a MedTank unceremoniously, and the tests the doctor performed on me weren't unreasonable either. She even asked.  
  
I decided to ignore the urge to kill her.   


* * *

After another week of being alone, I dragged the chair to the window, rolled the blinds up and watched people go about their day. Judging from the vibrant but calm activity, there wasn't much left of Talon to threaten the peace. The doctor chatted with a tall, dark-skinned woman a few paces down the hallway. They laughed a lot.  
  
This was supposed to be the enemy. These people living their lives were supposed to be evil; they were supposed to die. The thoughts shooting through my head started to annoy me.  
  
As if on cue, Tracer came up to my window. Her eyes went wide when she saw me, and she looked around to see if anyone was watching before she shyly waved and said something I couldn't hear. It looked like "Hi, how are you?"  
  
Foolish girl. How should I be? I was locked in and couldn't walk properly.  
  
I shrugged, raised an eyebrow and pointed at my ear before shaking my head.  
  
She nervously scratched her head and held up a finger, then she almost ran down the hallway.  
  
There were worse things to spend my time with than teasing her, I figured.  
  
A chime from the ceiling made me flinch. "Hello, my name is Athena. I'm Overwatch's universal utility AI," a voice from a speaker explained. "You have been given the privilege of speaking to visitors in front of this window. You can ask me to turn off this system at any time."  
  
"Wonderful. I'd like to turn it on, then. There aren't many interesting things to do in here."  
  
"I suppose that is true. The intercom is active now," Athena said.  
  
Sure enough, Tracer was back within the hour. She looked irritated, if that was at all possible for her.  
  
"Hiya, again," she greeted. "Can you hear me now? Wasn't easy convincing the old stick in the mud to let you have this."  
  
She still had that device strapped to her chest, but the bracers and her leather jacket were gone, along with the orange goggles. I hadn't noticed the freckles dusting her face before.  
  
"Hello," I paused, wondering what to say next. "I should thank you, it is terribly boring all by myself."  
  
"Yeah, I figured. Got some experience with that myself, sort of..." Her voice trailed off. "So, I decided I'd talk to you, since nobody but Angie does. If you want to, of course." She leant on the wall next to the window.  
  
There was a long scar on her shoulder, and I remembered the night one of my bullets grazed her there.  
  
I scoffed. "You're better company than the screen,  _ chérie…  _ So, what did you want to talk about? I'm sure there are more interesting things happening out there than there are in here,  _ non _ ?"  
  
"There are a few things I'm interested in," Lena admitted, "but, you know, they're a bit personal, so I'm not sure it's okay to ask them." She looked at her shoes, and then straight into my eyes. And she blushed.  
  
I could have called it cute, if I wanted to.  
  
"I suppose I could just turn the speaker off if I didn't want to talk to you," I mused. "Ask."  
  
She fidgeted for a moment before she spoke. "I didn't know you from… before, but — you weren't always like this, were you? I just can't believe you just got up one day and decided to kill people when you were ordered to." Her brows furrowed. "Why'd you kill?"  
  
Ah, that old quest—  
  
YOU ARE WIDOWMAKER. YOU HAVE BEEN IMPROVED. YOU KILL THE WEAK. GÉRARD WAS WEAK.  
  
"I was improved. I kill the weak." My own voice made a pang of  _ something _ well up.  
  
"Hey, are you crying?"  
  
I reached up to my face, and my fingers were wet. I hastily shut the blinds. "Athena, turn the intercom off," I almost sobbed.  
  
I let myself fall onto the bed. What happened? This wasn't right. What was this feeling?  
  
YOU ARE WIDOWMAKER. YOU DON'T FEEL A THING.  
  
I wept into the palms of my hands and cursed the thoughts.   


* * *

I didn't use the intercom in the next few days. I didn't even eat, until Doctor Ziegler told me in no uncertain terms she wouldn't let a patient starve under her supervision.  
  
The thoughts were wrong.  
  
If the thoughts were wrong, what else was?  
  
As annoying as it was, Tracer was right. I hadn't always been like this, hadn't always been Widowmaker.  
  
There had been days when I doubted the thoughts, too, but that had always been a short-lived experience. I tried to remember what happened then, but my head hurt; it stung like there was a spike impaling my forehead.  
  
Now, nobody seemed to stop me from remembering. In some moments, I wished someone did. Weak or not, the lives I ended without blinking an eye still had decades ahead of them. Gérard's life. My own.  
  
Why?  
  
YOU ARE WI—  
  
No. The thoughts were wrong. They were wrong, but they still droned through my head like an air raid siren. They contradicted reality, always piping up when something didn't fit into their narrative. Thankfully, I could drown them out. The last time I tried, I woke up with a headache and no hair. Overwatch wasn't bad.  
  
The thoughts weren't mine, put there by people used to abusing.  
  
I couldn't fix what I'd done, but I could make Talon pay for making me do it.   
  
  
I pulled the blinds back up. There was a post-it note stuck to the window with a note scribbled to the backside, so I could read it.  
  
'You're safe here _ ,' _ it said.  
  
I caught myself smiling. It was high time I did something. Maybe they'd let me out if I asked? I hadn't tried that yet. They trusted me with actual clothes now.  
  
ESCAPE.  
  
_ No. Live.  
  
_ When I stepped up to the doctor's desk as she came to check on me and sat on it, she flinched. I crossed my arms.  
  
"I just want to talk to you," I said. Making myself as non-threatening as I could was harder than I thought.  
  
She picked up her mug, took a sip, and set it down where I couldn't reach it without getting up. "That's new," she said.  
  
"Did you ever have a patient who was… I suppose you could call it 'brainwashed?'" I asked.  
  
Her brows furrowed. "I can't say I did," she said, her voice soft and measured. "Do you want to know if I can treat you?"  
  
I shook my head. "Mh, not quite. I am wondering what I could do to rejoin society, if you will."  
  
The look she gave me was a mixture between amazed and bewildered. It took a second before she rubbed her temple and sighed. "Off the top of my head? Talking to people is a great start." Suddenly, she perked up. "You know, I could ask if we could let you keep a journal on this terminal — if," she held up a finger, "if you let me read it and talk to you about it."  
  
"I would appreciate that,  _ merci, _ " I said. "I have a few more questions, if you don't mind."  
  
"Shoot," she said, before she covered her mouth with her hand.  
  
I gave an amused huff. "Am I allowed to know what is happening in the world?"  
  
"I don't see why not. I'll see if we can let Athena give you the news."  
  
I nodded. "This might seem unusual, but… Can you tell Tracer I wish to speak to her? Our last conversation has been cut short."  
  
"She's been stopping by every day, actually. She's worried, you know."   
  
  
  
I waited at the window for a while after the doctor left. I had an answer for Tracer now, but strangely, I was worried about her reaction. When we were fighting on rooftops, she never shot to kill, and if I was honest with myself, I didn't, either. Chasing each other around was much more interesting than waiting for a target, taking a shot and being extracted again. Looking back, the adrenaline from a successful kill didn't really compare to our back and forth.  
  
I didn't know if I imagined it or if it was the lack of reconditioning.  
  
Lost in thought, I stared at my hands. Would my skin ever go back to normal? I probably shouldn't wish for it too much.  
  
There was a knock at the window. Tracer leant on the wall next to the window again, her brows furrowed. "Hiya," her lips formed.  
  
My eyes went wide and I quickly told Athena to turn the intercom back on. "Sorry, I… Hello," I said. "That was rude of me."  
  
"'s fine," Tracer giggled, and I couldn't help but smile. "I didn't know you could be cute, too."  
  
Me? Cute? I started fiddling with my ponytail. "You asked me why I killed, last time." Her brows drew together, and she listened intently. "I think I have an answer now," I said.  
  
I told her that I only remembered bits and pieces after the few times I tried to disobey my orders. I told her how I was held captive in a luxurious, comfortable prison; how the thoughts that weren't mine droned through my head. I told her how I chose the path of least resistance, and how I slowly became jaded and cynical. Tracer listened. I told her how I started savoring the adrenaline of a kill, and she gasped, but she listened.  
  
"Bloody hell," she muttered when I stopped talking. "I really wanna give you a hug but I don't have security clearance." She rubbed her neck.  
  
I felt lighter, somehow.  
  
"Be back in a jiffy," she said suddenly, and jogged off down the hallway.  
  
I looked after her, wondered what being hugged by her would've felt like. Letting out a drawn-out sigh, I tilted my head back and stared at ceiling tile number thirty-seven. Calling her boundless optimism foolish felt silly now. The more I thought about her, the more I had to admit she was a remarkable person.  
  
"Right, now I can sit too," Tracer said from the window. She'd carried a chair to my window and sat on it cross-legged. "I'm really glad I didn't shoot you, ya know."  
  
I chuckled. "Likewise."  
  
"Hey, what should I call you? 'Widowmaker' is a bit awkward," she said.  
  
"So is 'Tracer,'" I replied. She had a point, though. "They didn't want me to remember that my name is Amélie Lacroix." Saying it out loud felt good.  
  
"That's a pretty name. Amélie." Hearing her say it sent shivers down my spine. "I'm Lena, Lena Oxton. Lot less fancy, I know."  
  
I let out an amused huff. "I believe you are greatly underestimating yourself, Lena," I said. "Besides, a name is only as fancy as the person carrying it." She nodded. "Can I ask you a question?"  
  
"Sure." Lena fell back against the chair's backrest.  
  
"What happened to Talon?" I half expected her to tell me that they vanished and the governments of the world covered the collapsed building in the middle of Rome up.  
  
Lena's eyes went wide. "They didn't tell you? We recovered a whole lot of their files, and a bunch of countries are holding multiple elections at once right now. I think they found some files about you too. I'm not sure exactly what's gonna happen with you, though," she explained.  
  
"I was hoping I could live a somewhat normal life again, one day," I said.   


* * *

A few days later, just after Athena somewhat excitedly reported that Germany had elected its first Omnic chancellor, Angela walked in with a hulking Gorilla. I'd never seen Winston out of combat, and I was thankful we weren’t fighting, because facing off against him in close quarters again was a terrifying thought.  
  
"Good morning," he said, pushing his glasses up his nose, his voice so deep it rumbled in my chest. "Angela — um, Doctor Ziegler — told me that you needed exercise, which should be difficult in here."  
  
I leant back in my chair and raised an eyebrow. "Does that mean I'll be able to leave this room?" I asked, not quite believing what I heard.  
  
"Uh, precisely. However, there are safety measures we have to take," he said. "Angela, would you explain? You're the expert here."  
  
Angela held up a small injector, along with a cartridge that contained a fluid emitting a faint blue glow. "This will put a few thousand nanomachines into your bloodstream that will let us track you and — should the need arise, which I sincerely hope won't happen — disable you. They don't do anything else." Her brows drew together and she offered a weak shrug. "I'm sorry, but we can't let you out without this."  
  
I got up, flicked my ponytail behind my back and held my arm out towards her. "I suppose you know what they subjected me to," I said. "Please let the bots do their thing and let me out of this room."  
  
"This might sting a little," she said.  
  
I scoffed.  
  
With a metallic click, the injector emptied the cartridge's contents into my veins.  
  
"Welcome to Watchpoint Gibraltar," Winston said as he stepped aside.  
  
When I walked into the hallway, quick steps echoed off the walls and quickly came closer. I took the post-it note that was still stuck to the glass, folded the once sticky part in on itself. I read it again and put it into my pocket, before I took a deep breath. The next second, Lena stood before me, out of breath and sweaty.  
  
"Hiya, luv," she panted, "you, got, out!"  
  
" _ Oui, _ " I said, a smile on my lips. "How did you know?"  
  
"Angela! Texted! Me!"  
  
"Lena. Breathe." I looked over my shoulder and caught Angela lifting her hand out of her lab coat's pocket to give me a thumbs up. I turned back towards Lena. "So,  _ chérie, _ do you want to show me around?"   


* * *

Another month passed. I had my own room now — well, one that didn't double as a patient holding cell. Some people on the Watchpoint still avoided me, looking away when I entered the room or not-so-subtly scooting away from me with their chairs when I sat to eat. Sometimes I wasn't sure if it was because people were afraid of me or because they were irritated by the incessant flirting they had to put up with when I was in the same room with Lena.  
  
I'd started teasing her when I noticed the way she looked at me, but if I was perfectly honest, she didn't do a terrible job retaliating. She was a pretty woman, and she might have also been clumsy and a tomboy, but she knew her assets.  
  
We did a lot of things together. In the first week, we only trained together, but she'd invited me to watch a movie together one day. She fell asleep on my shoulder that night. That's when I knew the flirting wasn't just fun and games anymore.   
  
  
  
I was in the middle of an interesting article on human-omnic relationships when there was a knock on my door.  
  
"Hey, can I come in?" Lena's voice was muffled, but her tone said it was urgent.  
  
She'd been running errands all day, and even at lunch, she was much less talkative than usual. Something was up.  
  
I put my holopad on the nightstand and sat up. "You can," I said.  
  
Within the blink of an eye, she was next to me, almost bouncing on her feet. It was almost nine in the evening, it was raining, and Lena was excited. She hadn't even taken off her pilot's jacket yet.  
  
"Oh good, you're still dressed. D'you have a minute? I gotta show you something!"  
  
I smirked. "What did you do?" I asked, as if I knew what was so important.  
  
"What, me? Nothing!" Her cheeks flushed. Nothing. Sure. "Put some shoes on, it's in Winston's lab."  
  
She even brought an umbrella, which she wanted to hold even though she was shorter than me.  
  
"Did something he built blow up again?" I asked.  
  
"No, and last time it only blew up because you waited too bloody long to see it," she protested. "Something about a capacitator thingy, I dunno."  
  
When we arrived at the entrance, the lights inside were oddly dim. Winston definitely wasn't working on anything.  
  
"Go on in, the umbrella's being stubborn," Lena said.  
  
I gingerly stepped inside, and as soon as I came out from under the stairs, several voices chanted "Surprise!"  
  
Garlands hung from the ceiling, and a table that was usually filled with electronics and jars of peanut butter now had a tablecloth and in the middle of it, there was a large, fruity cake. Reinhardt, Fareeha, Angela, Brigitte, Torbjörn, and Winston stood around it in a half circle.  
  
Lena came up behind me, and before I had any chance to respond to any of this, she hugged me. "Happy birthday!" she laughed. "Sit down, have some cake!"  
  
"I… I don't know what to say, honestly," I said, awkwardly making my way to the table. "Thank you." I sat down and fidgeted with my ponytail. "I had completely forgotten, I can't even remember the last time I celebrated."  
  
Reinhardt laughed heartily. "It's never too late to start again!" he roared and started cutting the cake.  
  
After the whole table praised Brigitte's baking skills, Lena got up.  
  
"Amélie, you've had such a great development in the last two months… We're all super glad you pulled through, and we love to have you around." There was a slight waver in her voice, and she pulled an envelope out of her jacket. "Well, now it's your decision if you want to stay, luv." She handed me the envelope. "Here's your internationally recognized ID. You're a free woman."  
  
I carefully ripped the paper open, and soon I held a small card in my hands, complete with my blue-skinned portrait.  
  
I studied it for a moment, before I placed it on the table and got up. Nobody said a word. I walked over to Lena, who looked at me with wide hazel eyes, before I smirked, grabbed her by the collar and kissed her fervently. It took her a moment to relax into it, but then she pulled me closer, stood on tiptoe to get a better angle. She was warm and soft, and everything I wanted, everything I'd longed for.  
  
Sadly, she had to breathe more often than I did. When our lips separated, I looked into her stunned face and brushed a strand of her unruly hair behind her ear.  
  
" _ Je t'aime. _ "

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [FemWatch - The Overwatch Femslash Zine](http://femwatchthezine.tumblr.com/). Please check it out!


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